Weekend Breakfast withPhemelo Motene

Book Express has been named this year’s 702 Small Business Award winners with Sage One. The winners and two runners up: Tutuka Motor Lab and Scimatics Solutions, were announced at a gala event held at 702’s new studiosin Sandton, and were presented with a cascade of prizes.

Each victor received a laptop with free access to Sage One Accounting and Sage One Payroll software, including one year’s worth ofsoftware support, and a training course or seminar of their choice.

An airtime package to the value of R250 000 on 702 and one month’s advertising exposure on the Google Display Network to the value of R25 000 was also awarded to the Book Express to further promote their businesses.

The awards announcements followed an extensive campaign to identify small businesses that are contributing big things. Keynote speaker was Herman Mashaba, himself an acclaimed entrepreneur and Founder of Black Like Me...

Audiences were requested to nominate small businesses they have dealt with, that offered them excellent service. It was from these nominations that 30 finalists were chosen.

In the build up to the 702 Small Business Awards, two finalists were interviewed each day in the breakfast show and afternoon drive. Each finalist then participated in an intensive round-robin interview session with a number of industry experts in various fields to help the judges identifyone winner and two runners up.

Book Express, which provides convenient access to quality second hand textbooks, both locally and abroad, stood out among the competitors in the 2014 campaign.

“We were deeply impressed by their understanding of their business and of the environment that they operate in,” said 702 station manager, Pheladi Gwangwa who was one of the judges. “Their passion forthe business is tangible and we loved that they offer a mentorship programme aswell as social development learnerships,” she added.